as the topic title suggests this is a two part question:

1: i have several LARGE drawing A2 and above so im thinking of digital cpturing them to upload but not sure how to go about it to captue them properly ie light etc.

any help would be most valued!

2: hand drawings to digital painting, i have several other drawings that i really like however i think they would look somewhat better coloured, and would love to paint them in photoshop. so after i scan the drawings in ( i would natuarly presume scanning in line art i may be wrong) where do i go? ie when i open the image in p/s do i leave it as a background? do i scan it in a particular format? do i just forget it n stop botherin you kind folk?

1. This can be very tricky if you are not set up properly. In college we used to set the painting/art on a blank white wall then using a bounce flash capture the image that way, but it usually took several different exposures. Color calibration can also be a problem, but if its a drawing then you may not be as concerned about that. there are certainly more qualified people here to answer this question.

2. If its a pencil sketch then scan it in at 600 dpi (300dpi min) then in ps do some clean up with levels to get rid of the 'dirt' you may also have to use the eraser to do this depending on how dirty your line art is. Then you will want to have that line art in a layer above your coloring layer and set it to multiply. That shold do it.

If you are scanning in inked line art: http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/htmltuts/scanning_lineart.html

I hope this helps.

ta steel mate a lot of info there and will take it onboard! ;)